[sustran] How effective the role of civil society can be?

[Eric Britton (ChoiceMail)]

How effective the role of civil society can be?
Khan Ferdousour Rahman

The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace
and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments,
international organisations, the business community and civil society. In
today's world, we depend on each other", says UN Secretary General Kofi A Annan.
Strengthening democratic institutions and supporting civil society are essential
for ensuring both human rights and good governance. Hierarchical governmental
system should be 'de-verticalised' into horizontal democratic institutions of
governance. A democratic governance system is characterised by transparency of
processes and accessibility to information. 

The idea of civil society has become more prominent in political and development
parlance over the past several years. This is mainly due to successive waves of
democratisation, beginning from Latin America, across the Central and Eastern
European countries and spreading through the developing world, including Africa
and Asia. Political scientists and practitioners have come to the realisation
that it is not just state institutions and policy initiatives that essentially
ensure a high standard of democratic governance but also the civil society. The
UN is increasingly both participant in and a witness to global civil society.
The UN system has significant informal and formal arrangements with civil
society organisations (CSOs), collectively known as non-governmental
organisations (NGOs). More and more, NGOs are UN system partners and valuable UN
links to civil society. NGOs are consulted on UN policy and programme matters.
CSOs play a key role at major UN Conferences and as indispensable partners for
UN efforts at the country level. At the same time, the UN is helping to promote
the emergence of CSOs in the developing countries. 

Civil society comprises the totality of voluntary civic and social organisations
and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the
force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political
system). Civil society is generally viewed "as a sphere of association in
society in distinction to the state, involving a network of institutions through
which society and groups within it represent themselves in cultural, ideological
and political senses." 

The civil society was articulated during 1750-1850. Then it was disappeared for
time being and revived in the late 20th century in the context of the demise of
the communist states. It is also true that the term has been used differently by
different social and political thinkers right from the days of Hegel and Marx.
In Hegel's view, civil society was a sphere of contradictions that could be
resolved in the higher institution of the state. The civil society includes the
economic sphere and the social groups as well as the administrative and judicial
institutions between the constitutional monarch and the family or the
individual. The civil society in Hegelian state owes its existence to discretion
of the government and lacks autonomy. The anti-liberal tradition takes on a
meaning in Marxist discourse which holds that the forces of production determine
the social relations and the forms of the state. Marx saw it as conflict, which
would take the form of class struggles leading to the overthrow of the state. It
is said that in the later writings of Marx, the concept of civil society was
largely replaced by that of capitalist mode of production. 

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, during the 1930s, conceived of civil
society in a broader sense than that of society minus the state. His view was
based on comparative theory of political changes through civil society. He
argued that where civil society was weak as in the East, there could be a
violent assault on the state as in Russia in 1917. In areas where civil society
was strong as in the West, this was not possible. He further argued that the
institutions of the civil society were 'outer earthworks' of the society. It was
through the same that the ruling classes maintain their dominance in the
society. It was, therefore, necessary to transform civil society as an
alternative powerbase of the subordinate classes. It was only through such
transformation that it would be possible to challenge state power. 

The civil society may also provide new forms generally arising out of social
movements. Under this typology, collective actors in civil society characterised
by mass mobilisation or participation can act as alternative powerbase to
challenge the state's monopoly powers of coercion to defend their own interests
and welfare. Civil society's activities were originated in most countries to
resist the arbitrariness and excesses of the government. Adam Ferguson made the
radical assertion that a government, which represses the civic associations, is
illegitimate. The civil society movements in the communist countries since late
1970s reasserted the liberal tradition. Initially, it directed its criticisms
against bureaucratisation. 

Civil society is the well-spring of the social capital, people working together
for common purposes, which is essential for good governance. CSOs can fill the
vacuum left by the slimmed-down state, and can advocate and monitor reforms that
foster sustainable human development. UNDP considers collaboration with these
organisations important because of their responsiveness, innovation, direct
relationship with the poor, capacity to stimulate participation and articulate
local views, cost effectiveness, local accountability and independent assessment
of issues. 

The civil society as organisation has emerged as a new paradigm which acts as
agents for delivery of public goods and services. It refers to voluntary
associations and organisations outside the market and state. It is very close to
that of third sector, which consists of private organisations that are formed
and sustained by groups of people acting voluntarily and without seeking
personal profit to provide benefits for themselves or for others. The
individuals are able to establish and maintain national networks through civil
society or more precisely, through third sector. These voluntary associations
also connect people with informal, loosely structured associations and
consolidate society through altruism without obligation. Most discussions on
civil society, which broadly includes NGOs involved in awareness-building, tend
to point out that this has to be created first through collective initiative of
individuals interested in good governance. This line of reasoning however is
premised on the belief that civil societies created through such initiatives
would act as a catalyst for change for the better. It also assumes that such
initiatives must come from the so-called educated elite living in cities and
organising seminars or discussions. 

CSOs or NGOs, as the most active agents of civil society, have crucial
advantages as well as serious weaknesses vis-à-vis government organisations and
businesses. These can broadly be divided into the categories of 'legitimacy' and
'effectiveness'. The latter includes qualities such as flexibility, grassroots
experience and mobility; while the former would include public trust,
accountability and representation. Mandate and responsibility are cornerstones
of any good organisation. The NGOs are primarily the service delivery agents.
Some of them carry on advocacy of social policies and values which are difficult
to isolate from the political and belief systems. NGOs or any other citizen
groups engaged in public policy deliberations must be very clear about two
things, i.e. mandate and stakeholders. Too often, various groups claiming to
speak 'on behalf of the people', as alternatives to politicians and political
parties. These generalisations, the 'we the people' type of claims are not just
false and misleading, they can undermine the credibility and seriousness of NGOs
as well. In addition these claims suggest that politicians and public officials
do not act 'on behalf of the people', and they en block are morally inferior to
citizen activists. 

It is important to understand that civil society is complementary, not a rival,
to representative democracy, and participatory democracy goes hand in hand with
representative democracy. Civil society is about participation, while
parliamentary democracy is about representation. The civil politics of citizen
participation and the parliamentary 'party politics' of representation have a
healthy dynamic of both complementarity and tension. Citizen participation
carries its own self-originated legitimacy from representation. Unlike public
officials, NGO leaders are not accountable to an electorate. On one hand, that
limits their mandate. They cannot claim overall representation. On the other
hand, this kind of independence from the electorate gives them the freedom,
flexibility, and space, which constitute the comparative advantages of NGOs in
national and global governance. CSOs are needed not because they 'represent the
people', they are needed because through them people get things better. Their
roles in the society are manifold, i.e. monitoring, advocacy, defending human
rights, use of international mechanism, and mobilisation. 

Bangladesh perspective 

There is no need to import the western concept of civil society in our present
socio-economic condition. The concept very well existed in our society through
elderly 'madbar' people in various villages and through 'sarder' in 'panchayet
system' in old Dhaka. Article 21 of Part II of our Constitution also ensures the
duties of the citizens to go by the Constitution and the laws to maintain the
discipline, to perform public duties and to protect public property. 

Civil society means taking responsibility sportingly and voluntarily. NGOs
including various think-tanks are having great role to play in terms of
establishment of human rights, preservation of environment, women empowerment
etc. Our civil society very well succeeded in banning polythene, removing 55,000
two stroke baby taxis from Dhaka city, enacting a new law to protect the water
bodies and making new building construction rules. 

As the politics is the rootless game of power, so the political society has
grasped the civil society as well as the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy has been
totally politicised by all the parties in power. Earlier the academicians used
to be the head of the governing body of any educational institute, but now any
chairman of governing body you see is a politician. Moreover Article 70 of our
Constitution has enhanced autocratic rule, thereby establishing autocratic
democracy and giving rise to dynasty. An MP becomes just obedient to a political
party or head of the party. Here, the opposition is compelled to go out of
parliament or even out of road. Under this situation it is still praiseworthy
that our civil society has not yet completely surrendered to the politicians. 

Civil society members may have political beliefs in mind, but that should not be
expressed in their behaviour. Once it is expressed, then automatically the
individual becomes politician, not remains as civil society member. Our civil
society is weak, because few of our national politicians always take camouflage
of professionals with an aim to divide them. But recently our civil society has
strengthened them tremendously. For that our media also played a transparent
role. 

The importance of civil society in a democratic society cannot be
overemphasised. Article 29 of UDHR states, "Everyone has duties to the community
in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible."
CSOs, therefore, have a role to play in creating a favourable climate for treaty
implementation and instigating implementation. 

Khan Ferdousour Rahman is a freelancer.
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/12/30/d612301503114.htm

 

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